


Erupt

by sasha_b



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-13
Updated: 2011-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik and control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erupt

**Erik**

The boy wanted to fly, so Erik helped him fly. No matter if it was the wrong way to go about it…fear is weakness and fear is failure and now look at the boy. He flies, and Charles is proud, Sean is screaming in happiness, and the other children have renewed their interest – and their determination – to make the best of their powers.

Erik feels weak. He’s been having the dream for three days now; he’s woken, gasping for air, hand at his throat each time.

The night is rolling in and he can feel the storm coming with it. The strength of it, the electricity that has the hair at the nape of his neck standing on end. He knows there’s no truth to the myth that metal attracts lightning – having several scientists around doesn’t hurt - nevertheless, power flows through his fingertips as he stretches them out in front of him, each digit spreading as far as it can, his skin goose pimpling.

His eyes narrow as he watches his hands; the idea of what Charles wants for them, what he’s trying to make with his … school (the only word for it) is a possibility that terrifies and soothes Erik at the same time. How can he do anything save achieve the goal he’s searched for since he was ten? Since his boyhood was taken from him by the firing of one single bullet?

Is it his dream, the nightmare that scares (terrifies) him, or the possibility of the impossible? Is there more to life (his life) than one singular event? It’s too much to contemplate without his brain feeling wet and runny and he stands up stiffly, hands on the glass of the windows, feeling the pressure of the storm, heart throbbing, pounding in time with the tornado that has taken residence in his mind.

The rain is coming. He leaves the mansion through the kitchen door, and heads out into the wind, grey skies and clouds swallowing him as quickly as the ocean almost had.

 **Charles**

The storm blows in quickly.

The study is dark, no matter that it’s only 6pm. The wind lashes the trees outside; bits of hail and ice are clunking against the windows, and Charles’ eyes are narrowed, the blue the dark of a deep lake that you wonder – when you try and look – if there truly is a bottom to. The coffee he drinks is too strong, and it burns his throat, but not in that pleasant whiskey way he prefers.

The children are still animatedly talking to Sean about his flight earlier that afternoon; Charles allows a small smile to creep up his face (smooth white skin, flushed with the triumph of the training success still) even as he leans on his left arm, futzy cardigan hanging open as he peers into the lashing rain, trying to focus on one thing –

He can feel Erik, but he’s not sure where the other man actually _is_ (because he won’t push, even now) until a crack of lightning the size of what he imagines to be God’s almighty wrath strikes outside. The satellite dish is lit from within and Charles can see a tiny figure, silhouetted in two second bursts as the white flashes heat the air, electric monstrosities that have his hair standing on end.

He’s out the door without thinking, despite Raven’s shout.

Charles is soaked in seconds. Hail flies around his body, but he ignores it, no matter the _ping_ of the particularly sharp pieces; one catches him directly on the cheek and slices, shallowly, but he can feel the warmth of the blood in contrast with the chill of the rain.

He reaches the dish and climbs the stairs, not knowing how long it’s taken him to get there, not caring. Erik’s mind is a broken child’s top, spinning and spinning and Charles winces as the pieces of toy tin splinter as Erik’s careful self control (the control Charles has sensed wavering) breaks – caroms away, tiny whirlwinds in its wake – sucking his own brain after it. This is how it was when they first met (when Charles first found him); pain so strong, so loud (Charles will never forget it; thinks about it sometimes late at night) he could do nothing but go to it and succor it and –

“Erik!”

He shouts the other man’s name, once, twice. Erik’s hands are raised and his face is impassive, rain dripping from his lank hair, the dark strands shoved off his face, forcing the youth in him to come to the surface, a child that has been twisted into something no man should ever have to be.

Charles isn’t sure he could name that thing even if he had to.

Creaking, ripping sounds shriek through the air, and Charles has to bat hail out of the way as he struggles the few feet to where Erik is standing, legs spread, sweats dark from the rain, fingers crooked, bent at odd angles as he _concentrates_ and _zingpop_ bits of the dish’s metal skin are peeling away from its frame and flying toward them. Erik catches them with his ability; the 30 or so pieces he’s got already float lazily over his head even as Charles flashes a ridiculous inappropriate grin; out of place and he can’t hold back the surge of pride he feels for this man and the things he can do – no matter that Erik’s rage and the black black black inside is now pouring from his pores, drenching the air around them with its ooze. Charles shakes his head, the grin dropping into nothingness, and fights to Erik’s side, the fury palatable and he raises a hand without thinking, shoving through the air as though it’s soup. Anger soup. He laughs, a hysterical bark, for only a brief second.

Erik gestures with his left hand and a final piece of sheeting pops off with a groan and flies to join the others whirling in a funnel over his head. The hail dances around them, tearing at Charles’ clothing, pounding Erik’s head and pinging off the platform at their feet. The wind buffets them both, but Charles doesn’t think Erik can feel much.

He wonders what’s set this off; he’s only felt Erik like this one other time (the water would have taken him under), and that time was during the _time before_ (BE? Before Erik? He snorts, frantic and dazed) and Charles can barely remember that. Things have changed so dramatically – and he’s not seen a blatant physical manifestation of Erik’s anger before. Only when he was after something, and not like this, not the loss of his tight mental control, not when Erik was with Charles and the children and Charles is terrified, but only for a moment and only for the other man. This is _Erik_ and it doesn’t matter if Erik rips the whole dish out of the ground and flings it at Charles. Charles will help him, will succor and care for him and _where is this coming from?_

He could find out the cause easily enough. He doesn’t think Erik even knows he’s there in his rage; it would be easy to slip in. He considers it, fights the morality, his own rules only for a moment. Erik is projecting so loudly it would be easy to press just a bit, not too deep, but enough to help him. That’s what Charles does, after all.

The metal pieces begin to turn, lazy in their pattern, Erik’s bright bright eyes looking upward (the first movement other than fingers Charles has seen in him), following their motions as his hands conduct silent directions to the metal, face blank, emotions –

Charles winces again, his hand rushing to his temple; he can’t wait to get it there, to delve (only to the surface, to help Erik, to rescue his friend) into this, to figure out what’s caused the hyper rage and _it feels like it had in the water_. And that’s horrifying and his own chest constricts as a few words rip through his brain as Erik studiously ignores him, the metal pieces whirling faster and faster, the toy top of control spinning as it too disintegrates, completely and without a complaint. Not even ignoring, really; it’s as though Charles is a non entity.

 _a dream, it was only a dream, and yet you can’t ignore the truth, that you are this monster, forced to submit to his will, to do what he wants and to follow his experiments and to suffer pain and pain again as you raise your hands, bent and broken and my god but it’s so cold in the world – is there a place where there’s light and warmth? Or is everything rain and dark and ash and chill and the bits of straps that bite into your flesh_

“It was just a dream, Erik,” Charles staggers as he’s thrown – pitched, a fastball in high form – from Erik’s mind; he hadn’t meant to delve so deep, only for a moment, just to help his friend, this man that is so like him and yet so on the opposite side of the spectrum. He leans against the railing, catching himself with his cold hands, the iron bar bending with a scream that’s worse than any terrified woman’s.

Any terrified child’s.

The metal whirls over Erik’s head, faster and faster, the pieces humming with the blur of their motion, and Erik flings his hands into the air, violent movement, his face a riot of expression that Charles gets mental flashes of – he winces each time and steps back from the railing as it peels off and drops down the side of the dish.

The sky is black and filled with hail and the tornado is the pieces of satellite dish that have been torn from it by Erik, who is wrapped in his own pain. It flutters about him, a torn cloak that Charles will _by anything that’s holy_ rip from his bent shoulders. It is the least – the only – thing he can do.

A small jagged bit _zip_ s by him and adds another cut to his cheek; his hand touches it momentarily, but he ignores the blood as he had before and advances on Erik, projecting _calm your mind, my friend_ and when that doesn’t work, he merely thinks _Erik_ over and over, serene, supportive, anything he can pull from his store of –

He doesn’t need tricks for this. He does need Erik, however, and despite his desire to read more into this (the metal flies and zooms and competes with the hail for space around them; Erik’s mastered this particular scenario) or to use his power and just take what the other man has found that has caused this (oh, how he wants to) he steps up to Erik, shoving through the wind and nature’s storm and Erik’s man made tempest.

They both drip, their hair shoved back off both their foreheads as the rain continues to pound them; Charles has a flash of _drowned rat, lab rat_ and shakes his head to rid it of that image.

 _Don’t ruin this for me, Erik._

He touches the other man’s shoulder, gently, a tiny hesitant thing (odd; Charles Xavier has never been hesitant in his life) alighting on Erik’s broad back, a hummingbird on Vesuvius.

Gradually, the pieces of iron and metal that have been spinning and taking out various antenna and other things around them drop to the ground many feet below them, scraping the side of the satellite dish, twisting away like so much detritus. Charles does not follow their progress, however; he merely keeps his left hand on Erik’s right shoulder, his eyes stuck to the side of the other man’s head, waiting, breathing, calm, trust.

Erik’s hands drift to his sides.

The storm still rages about them, only it’s just nature now; rain and hail and leaves and bits of trash from the field the satellite dish is in. Charles thinks about Sean’s flight this afternoon, and how Erik had grinned (only a bit sheepishly) as they’d watched the boy _fly_.

Such stiff muscles beneath his hand.

“Erik,” Charles says, not able to disguise the pain and utter sadness he feels; it rolls off Erik in waves stronger than any ocean, ripping at Charles’ psyche and tearing it as open as Erik’s mind is right now. “You’re not alone, my friend. I will not leave you alone. I swear it.”

He’s not sure why he chose those words. They feel right – and with this man, Charles goes with his gut. He won’t lie to Erik, won’t deceive him, for they are on the same side, want the same things (a brief cock of his head; Charles has to reexamine that, but not now, as he’s afraid to) and have found each other, after all. It’s only right to respect and care for him.

Charles wants nothing more in this world right now. Other than for Erik to stop _hurting_ , but he hopes he can do something about that. What kind of telepath would he be –

What kind of human would he be if he didn’t try? He tells himself that, as the morality of his push into Erik’s thoughts niggles at the back of his mind.

“I’m fine,” Erik speaks at last. The words are whipped away from him, torn from his lips, leaving him powerless, with no breath, silence descending. He blinks; Charles can see his lashes even through the rain, and steps closer so he can hear. Erik’s right hand raises and slicks his hair back again, his high forehead creased and the only sign of any emotion. “I’m fine.”

“We need to get inside,” Charles shouts, the rain coming faster now, although the hail has disappeared as quickly as the pieces of metal Erik was controlling did. He turns toward the ladder, but stops when he realizes the other man isn’t following him. “Erik? I want to get you inside the house. Please.”

Erik bats at the rain as though he can push it aside, a confused look on his face as though he’s just woken. Charles’ eyes widen as he can feel (like a pulse, a heartbeat) the terror that’s rolling off Erik. It’s not black like the rage, but almost incandescent; no color can describe it. He wants to vomit from the intensity. Taking the few steps that separate them, he grips Erik’s arm. “Come inside. Please.”

“Do you think there’s anything worse than death?”

Erik’s words are quiet, but Charles can hear them as though they’re spoken in his head, echoing, thudding. He does not hesitate. “Only the death of a dream.”

The lines on Erik’s forehead smooth out. His mobile mouth (so fascinating how it betrays his inner pain) quirks upward weirdly. He shoves his hair back again even as the wind tries to blow it into his eyes. “Charles,” he answers, “so innocent.”

He brushes past Charles and climbs down the ladder with ease, but waits for Charles at the ground. They walk back to the mansion together, Charles silent, at last reaching out to hold onto Erik’s left arm, the sodden material of his sweats a heavy thing that has long since lost its elasticity and shape due to the drenching they’ve received. As if the other man would run; as if he would leave.

The hall is silent, although Raven (most likely) has left towels and two robes out for them. Erik strips in the hall, unselfconscious, his dark hair forcing the whiteness of his face and the bags (suitcases, Charles thinks) under his eyes out to the fore. He wraps one of the robes around himself, the v of his chest showing, smooth muscle rippling, power and terror in one attractive package.

Charles shakes his head. Erik may be the perfect predator – all teeth and strength and smooth ability to do whatever he wants to get what he wants – but Charles has something the other man has buried so deep it might be impossible to find.

Compassion.

And yet.

“You’re shivering,” Erik says, his angular features pinched and young (the boy Charles has seen inside) as he hands Charles a towel, “Take this.”

Blinking into the warm firelight that has snuck into the hall (from the open door of the study, no doubt) Charles also sheds his clothing, methodically stacking it near the door, shoes last, and slips into the robe. He fingers the monogrammed “X” on the pocket, smiling inappropriately at the sight of Erik in a match to his robe.

The other man cocks his head, a wry glint in his eyes, the irises so dark now it’s nearly impossible to make out the color. Like the sea, Charles thinks. The ocean that brought them together and nearly took them apart.

“Your family has odd things.”

“Yes,” Charles agrees. He turns to the left and heads to the kitchen, straight to the refrigerator; removing an unopened bottle of the first alcohol he comes to –

“Dom?”

“Please.”

They drink in silence at the table from a pair of horrible jelly jars Raven had found at a second hand shop in Oxford and had loved, so Charles had gotten them for her. Lightning cracks the sky wide open, although eventually the thunder rolls distantly away from them, the rain lightening as the moon appears from behind black thin clouds. Still they sip, and still Charles waits.

He could find out the true cause easily enough. The dream – or the true fear?

Erik rises after he’s finished, and pauses by where Charles is sat in his chair. He looks down at Charles, who can feel the gaze on the top of his head. Charles fiddles with his glass for a moment, but looks up after only two inhalations.

Erik touches his face, briefly, a ghost, trailing over Charles’ high cheekbone where it’s cut from the hail and the metal. It stings, but Charles doesn’t care.

Erik’s hand is back at his side before Charles can even open his lips. “You are the better man, Charles.” Erik’s eyes are red and suddenly the exhaustion and fear Charles had sensed in powerful waves returns, only this time they’re low and threatening and he has to swallow in order to breathe. “And I’ve been thankful for that since I met you.

"But I am the stronger.”

 _Only death can stop me._

Erik projects hard when he’s dreaming, or when he’s meaning to. Or perhaps when he can’t control it – he would never admit to that.

He’s gone up the stairs, and Charles sits in the kitchen, hair dripping, champagne fuzzing softly in its silly glass, dark clouds scudding across the sky as he stares out the window. Pain and anger. There is more to Erik than a singular goal.

He pushes back from the table, and after dumping the glasses in the sink, follows the other man up the stairs, his heart calm, his way sure, _his_ dream the only thing that matters except for this man Erik Lehnsherr, whom he will save by _making_ him believe he is more than one thing. Charles knows this to be true inside, not just in his rational brain, but in his heart, and as Raven has always told him, the heart doesn’t lie.

He can save Erik, and they can be the better _and_ the stronger men, together, one.

 **Both**

The boy wanted to fly, so Erik helped him fly. No matter if it was the wrong way to go about it…fear is weakness and fear is failure. The death of a dream –

Erik sits in the robe on his borrowed bed, hair wet, skin dry and stretched from the drenching he’s gotten, hands laying limply on his thighs, exhausted, power stressed to the max by his experiment earlier. How much can the anger and the fear do for him? He had almost ripped the entire skin off the satellite before Charles had arrived. He had been letting the rage build – he could have done more had the terror not shown its face too. The dream has affected him more than he thought it would. His control – he’d lost it, and he wonders about that and just why it was this time and not any other.

He rubs the pinching place between his eyes; the pain sometimes takes up residence there and his nose becomes stuffed, radiating pain and throbbing as it builds until he either screams or does what he had been trying to do earlier – release his powers and allow the rage to direct them. But never like this. Not before, not like he had this time. Terrifying, and yet. The desire to see what it feels like again is strong. He is strong. The rage is strong.

Charles opens the door without knocking, and Erik isn’t surprised. Humanitarian, intelligent, innocent, beautiful Charles. Stupid Charles.

But Erik doesn’t fault him for those things; he relishes having discovered them, and when Charles sits next to him on the bed, hand on Erik’s sharp cheekbone, he closes his eyes, and tries to remember a time when he though the world was an innocent, beautiful place, too.

“I’m not afraid of you, Erik.”

After a moment, he feels Charles smile against his neck, and for one moment, he does remember.


End file.
